Wrecks threat to gas pipeline

Scuttled warships from a conflict nearly 300 years ago threaten the construction of a vital multi-billion pound natural gas pipeline on the floor of the Baltic Sea.

The 746-mile pipeline is a Russian-German project to avoid routeing gas from Russia through Ukraine and Belarus and eliminate the risks of disruption from their turbulent relationships with Moscow and state energy giant Gazprom.

The seabed route, known as Nord Stream, is littered with wooden wrecks sunk by Sweden to defend its waters against Denmark in 1715.

They were discovered in 1990 and declared to be a valuable maritime archaeological site, at the spot where the Nord Stream pipeline is supposed to rise and come on land.

Jens Lange, in charge of gaining planning permission in German waters, plans to make a hole in the tight chain of shipwrecks.

But there are also still tens of thousands of tons of highly dangerous Second World War munitions in the Baltic.